Guild Wars 2

I don’t buy that, Creslin, what you’re saying contradicts my own experience. My guildies and I pull it off all the time, it is not as hard as you make it seem. It takes 1 second for a warrior fighting someone else to strafe 5 feet to the right and drop “Fear me.” It takes me 1 second on my necro to drop a fear mark if a teammate asks for it. We pay attention to where people got downed. It doesn’t require a complete disengagement from whoever you’re fighting.

Creslin.1758:

lettucemode.3789:

Stiv.1820:

Syeria.4812:

lettucemode.3789:

“Removing the downed state will actually give smaller/coordinated groups more of a chance to beat the larger group.” – still haven’t seen an argument to support this that isn’t simply “they have more people”.

Exactly. People have repeated that statement so often that it seems to be just universally accepted as fact, but I’ve never seen or understood the logic behind the statement. All evidence I’ve seen points to the opposite, that downstate helps a smaller/coordinated group more than anyone else.

What are the reasons people believe downstate encourages “zerg” groups, and that it helps them more than other types of groups?

Because the rate at which one get resurrected from downed (and stomped) state scales with the number of people ressurrecting?

A single AoE daze counters that. And that is still just “they have more people”.

Yeah and then after the daze wears off, they go right back to combat rezzing. Unless you have an insto-cast AoE daze available and stability to stop the downed guy from interrupting your stomp…they are probably just going to rez the downed guy anyway.

Another fix I would be in favor of would be to stop health regen from rezzers while a stomp is in progress…just something to prevent group combat rezzing from making it nigh impossible to kill a larger group that actually uses it.

Just responded to the other guy about this. We were talking about small groups, remember? Now all of a sudden you’ve constructed this specific situation in which you are the only person who can disable these rezzers. Coordinate with your team and get them to disable the rezzers, then you don’t have to stop your stomp at all and they have no time to start rezzing again.

Creslin.1758:

lettucemode.3789:

So they did the smart thing: they couldn’t counter your stomp directly because of mist form, so they chose to rez faster than you could stomp. That sounds like smart play to me, and the system is promoting skill. If your team was too tied up to get rid of the rezzers, then either (a) you were too outnumbered to do anything about it, or (b) no one else was paying attention or you weren’t communicating well, meaning that you guys didn’t manage the down state well enough, meaning that the stomp failed.

A larger force is always going to have an advantage over the smaller force, in anything ever, period. Of course a larger force is going to have an advantage when it comes to any mechanic, including down state. The discussion here is about whether or not the down state inherently favors numbers vs. skill, that is, by design. I think enough examples have been given to show that the down state works to the advantage of whatever side handles it better, regardless of size. And eventually, the force becomes so large that no amount of skill can overcome it. That’s just the way it is.

The down state is a core mechanic, a central feature of GW2. It’s not going away, and I don’t think there are any changes that could be made that would favor smaller groups but not larger groups.

First off, I want to make it clear that I’m not asking that the downed state be removed. I’m just asking that they make combat rezzing less effective by either making it slower, or making it interruptable by regular attacks.

Second, here’s the problem with your explanation of the larger group using “skill” when they decided to combat rez during a mist stomp…there is no counter. There is literally nothing I can do to prevent that rez.

After all, I have surely just used my burst to down the guy, so I can’t try to burst his rezzers down. Even if I have CC up, they will just get up and rez the dead guy again. I am basically screwed in this scenario. It makes it nigh impossible for a small group to kill a much larger group that are combat rezzers…even if they greatly beat them in the skill category.

Fast combat rezzing is a mechanic that favors large groups even more than they are already favored. I mean, they already have a big numbers advantage…do they really need more?

I noticed that your response is all “I”. Why aren’t other people from your small group coming over to help with their own AoE disables? If you are in a group, then play like you’re in a group and cover your teammate’s stomps and revives. It’s that simple.

Stiv.1820:

Syeria.4812:

lettucemode.3789:

“Removing the downed state will actually give smaller/coordinated groups more of a chance to beat the larger group.” – still haven’t seen an argument to support this that isn’t simply “they have more people”.

Exactly. People have repeated that statement so often that it seems to be just universally accepted as fact, but I’ve never seen or understood the logic behind the statement. All evidence I’ve seen points to the opposite, that downstate helps a smaller/coordinated group more than anyone else.

What are the reasons people believe downstate encourages “zerg” groups, and that it helps them more than other types of groups?

Because the rate at which one get resurrected from downed (and stomped) state scales with the number of people ressurrecting?

A single AoE disable counters that. And that is still just “they have more people”.

If you implement diminishing returns, that still disadvantages small groups because now they have to allocate a higher percentage of their total force to rez someone, meanwhile the other force is beating on them.

Stiv.1820:

Burst thieves are one of the easiest builds to kill in this game. Really they are.

There is a difference between coordination and skill. Both groups can be coordinated and all things equal 15 will always beat 5 with equal levels of both. With the current downed state, all the coordination you need is “If someone goes down everyone rez them”. Maybe they stability rez, maybe they brute force rez, whatever. It’s just not hard to go near someone hit 1 utility skill or KB then hit F.

Stability rezzes have counters, brute force rezzes have counters. If a guardians uses Stand your Ground and 3 people start rezzing, well, unless you’ve got a necro with Well of Corruption, tough luck, that’s smart play. But you’ve forced him to use it, and it won’t be up the next time someone goes down. You play against it the same way you play against someone with Flash in League of Legends. Make them burn it and then get out. Use the time they’re not attacking to to back off, heal up a bit, or even apply pressure on them since they’re sitting there in a tight little clump doing nothing.

You act like rezzing is some impossible thing to counter. All you need is to plan for the situation ahead of time with your skill and trait choices.

Sixpax.8360:

Syeria.4812:

I don’t believe that downstate benefits a larger force over a more skilled (but smaller) force.

A higher skilled, better coordinated group which is outnumbered should benefit more from downstate than an uncoordinated zerg would.

Since the more skilled, more coordinated group is better at focusing targets, supporting each other, and just generally playing the game, when a player is downed for the small force, they should rally very quickly as the group either rezzes them (which they are better at than the zerg) or kills off an opponent for the rally. The groups trying to win with sheer numbers won’t have the coordination to quickly kill off an enemy to force a rally, or to quickly rez their downed forces.

In general, if a “more skilled, but outnumbered” group is losing to a larger zerg with downstate, they would almost certainly have lost anyway (and in much shorter of a time period) if downstate were removed.

All you’re really doing is stating that a coordinated group beats an uncoordinated one. There are plenty of coordinated zergs and plenty of uncoordinated small groups. Even within a zerg you can have coordinated 5-man groups assisting each other. So when all else is equal coordination wise, the larger group has numbers + better chances rallying allies… double bonus for them. Removing the downed state will actually give smaller/coordinated groups more of a chance to beat the larger group.

But that’s not a problem with the down state. That’s a problem with the fact that they simply have more people than you. Since they have more people than you, if coordination is equal, they’ll be better at anything than you. It’s simple math. If the down state was removed and coordination was equal, the larger group would beat the smaller group every time anyway. If you have some sort of problem with being disadvantaged because you have less people…I don’t know what to tell you, man, that’s the way everything works, both in games and real life.

No one says “I can’t keep conditions on a large group of people by myself, since there are more of them they can cleanse more easily, this is unfair”.

“Removing the downed state will actually give smaller/coordinated groups more of a chance to beat the larger group.” – still haven’t seen an argument to support this that isn’t simply “they have more people”.

Removing the down state would make it even easier for burst thieves to take down entire groups by themselves, ever consider that?

Xsorus.2507:

In previous MMO’s, The advantage of Smaller Groups was their Small Foot Print, In other words, They weren’t as noticed as a Large 50 Man zerg moving through an area, and thus didn’t attract attention.

This allowed them to Flank Larger Forces and wipe large numbers of them very quickly.

Anet has decided that’s unreasonable, and instead as rewarded mindless play with AOE cap and The Downed System..If my force flanks a large force and downs a bunch, but one person dies on our team, Everyone of the people we just flanked is ressed instantly..Making the Flank we did in the first place completely pointless.

In 1v2 Setting Downed System instantly becomes a pain as well, unless you’re a class like Thieves or one with on the call stability you most likely won’t down a player before they’re ressed… This rewards some classes while punishing others…

The Fact that mobs can be used to Rally players is also stupid, even the crappy ones that die in one hit… that are scattered around the World vs World area….

Sorry, I disagree.

In the situation you describe, you down the players, but then 4 of them rez. Why didn’t you kill them after downing them? It takes 3-8 extra seconds to kill a player after downing them. If you’re in a small force, trying to take a larger force, killing players quickly is even more important than normal, and you need to take traits and utilities that will help you do this. You cannot ignore a player after he is downed, that is, ignore a huge mechanic in this game, and then complain when they all get back up because you did nothing about it.

All classes can guarantee a stomp, more or less. Thieves can blind or stealth stomp, Warriors/Guardians have stability, Mesmers can daze shatter during the stomp, Eles can mist stomp, my necro can shroudstomp and also blind, engineers can drink that one elixir, etc. etc.

All classes can prevent stomps and revives, more or less. Guardians have knockback, warriors have “Fear me!”, mesmers can daze shatter, engineers can knockback, rangers can knockback, my necro can corrupt that Stability right off of you so you can’t even guarantee stomps that way, etc. etc.

If you are running around in a small group with a GS burst warrior, a backstab thief, other such builds, etc. and aren’t prepared to do any of the things I listed above, you are doing it wrong.

I do agree with you about the mobs rallying people. I also agree with some others in here that stomping an enemy should force them to waypoint spawn.

Creslin.1758:

Yep it is definitely annoying soloing…but also in small group IMO. I know that I have been in a group of like 5 or so versus maybe 10-15.

We will get one downed, and I will go to mist-form stomp him, which really SHOULD be a near-guaranteed kill (against non Ele, thief, mes) considering I am sacrificing such a useful utility just to get a stomp. But since his buddies all rush to rez him, there is no way my stomp will complete before he is up…and my group is busy trying to frantically survive the outnumbered fight to get rid of the combat rezzers.

Now on the other side of the coin, if one of us goes down…if the rest of our group tries to rez, they will just get mowed down by the massive amounts of players we are up against unless they use stealth or invuln while rezzing…and those are not always available.

After all, the only reason small groups can take large amounts of players is that they are CONSTANTLY moving and using their skills to survive. If they all stop to combat rez you, the massive amounts of damage that a 10-15 person group can do will just destroy them. Obviously, there are exceptions…like if the zerg isn’t beating on the combat rezzers, but normally, this doesn’t happen.

So, in my experience, combat rezzing just favors zergs. Small groups are hurt by it just as much as soloers, and for basically the same reasons.

So they did the smart thing: they couldn’t counter your stomp directly because of mist form, so they chose to rez faster than you could stomp. That sounds like smart play to me, and the system is promoting skill. If your team was too tied up to get rid of the rezzers, then either (a) you were too outnumbered to do anything about it, or (b) no one else was paying attention or you weren’t communicating well, meaning that you guys didn’t manage the down state well enough, meaning that the stomp failed.

A larger force is always going to have an advantage over the smaller force, in anything ever, period. Of course a larger force is going to have an advantage when it comes to any mechanic, including down state. The discussion here is about whether or not the down state inherently favors numbers vs. skill, that is, by design. I think enough examples have been given to show that the down state works to the advantage of whatever side handles it better, regardless of size. And eventually, the force becomes so large that no amount of skill can overcome it. That’s just the way it is.

The down state is a core mechanic, a central feature of GW2. It’s not going away, and I don’t think there are any changes that could be made that would favor smaller groups but not larger groups.

CrazyAce, I had the same problem for a long time. I suggest changing around your build often, trying new things and traits, even if they seem dumb. My first few builds also had me feeling squishy but though experimentation I was able to find something that worked, and worked well.

Also, just in case you came to GW2 from another MMO, don’t forget to dodge. A lot of the mobs would be straight-up too strong in a game like WoW because they hit so hard, but if you learn their animations and dodge the important attacks they are not bad at all.

I still find warhorn useful in WvW, personally. I like interrupting heals, stomps, and stealth-stomps, and the fast life force regeneration Locust Swarm gives is good too.

Though I am traited to siphon life on hits and crits, so that makes Locust Swarm more attractive for me.

Something else: If I was running your build, I would switch out Dagger Mastery for Mark of Evasion. It seems that would help keep up regeneration on yourself, plus you can still stack bleeds, probably faster than casting Enfeebling Blood slightly sooner. Thoughts?

Hey Lopez, reading through your guide right now and I’m liking it. It’s well written and there is good info in there. Thanks for writing it up!

A few corrections/additions you may find useful:

Trident, Frozen Abyss: It applies one second of chill continually (maybe every half-second, not sure) to nearby enemies while charging it up, so by the time the spell is released there is a 4 or 5 second chill on enemies.

Reanimator: in the recent patch, the 30s cooldown was lowered, and it’s possible to have more than one out at a time now. There was another thread on here where someone said they regularly had 4 or 5 out at a time.

Weakness also reduces the endurance regeneration rate of enemies, so it’s really useful against thieves and other enemies in PvP or WvW. Though I guess nothing dodges in PvE so it’s probably not worth mentioning.

Again, thanks for the write up, it’s a great guide. I will probably use it in the future if I want to make a condition build (I’m power for now).

Hey Jason, what’s your gear setup? I was running full exotic Knight’s armor for about a month, so max toughness but I never got above 3k on my axe or dagger 2. I recently replaced all my trinkets with Berserker’s and the channels have gone up to about 3.5 – 4k. I use a lot of siphoning stuff (bloodthirst, vampiric precision, omnomberry bars, sigils of blood, Vampire runes), am using spectral skills, and also rarely lose 1v1’s, but I haven’t been able to get the numbers you are. Just wondering what the difference between us is.

It’s also called Shrouded Removal, and it’s also called Spiteful Removal, and it’s also called Fetid Consumption.

res.4961:

Warhorn. Completely useless. Nobody in their right mind would use it, Necromancers are supposed to focus on inflicting status conditions on the enemy to exascerbate their damage, Warhorn gives almost nothing in the way of damage and its daze is short-range. The swiftness skill is nice but it’s not worth sacrificing an offhand weapon that would actually be useful. I would suggest reworking Warhorn in totality and giving us a slot skill that grants swiftness.

…wow. Just…wow. So according to you, interrupting healing skills is worthless. Interrupting stealth-stomping thieves is worthless. Perma-swiftness when combined with Spectral Walk is worthless. Dagger/Warhorn with Locust Swarm on is one of the fastest ways to generate life force, and your opponent can’t get away…apparently that’s also worthless.

EDIT: Sorry for the harsh tone. Warhorn is a key offhand for power necros. If you think it’s worthless, then you’re not speaking from experience.

I’ll add my opinions to the mix. I think that all our utilities are useful in some situation and I think it is unrealistic to expect each utility to be useful in all situations.

Heals
Consume Conditions: Awesome.
Well of Blood: Good in a minion build and awesome when playing support in dungeons, outclassed by CC elsewhere.
Blood Fiend: Seems good for minion builds. Heals for less than Well of Blood, but is mobile and has much lower CD, so it depends on your playstyle and what tradeoffs you are willing to make. I think it’s fine in concept, could maybe use some number tweaking, and it did get a buff recently.

Wells
I think all the wells are strong utilities. They are tremendously useful in sPvP and dungeons. If you are contesting a point and drop two wells, your opponent basically has to allow you to neutralize the point (points neutralize in 4s) or else die and lose it entirely. They’re weaker in other game modes but I don’t think they need a buff.

Spectral
Walk: Awesome.
Grasp: Much better than it used to be, and I regularly slot it in WvW to pull people out of zergs or off walls or to stop people from kiting me. Low cooldown and it chills. Still gets obstructed by nothing sometimes but I think that is a general problem with projectiles in this game.
Wall: Awesome. Not sure why some of you guys rate it so poorly. I use it to give protection to an entire zerg as we charge a keep lord. It’s also useful in open-area fights, I usually place it on top of myself or near the enemy and make sure to run through it twice if I can. Well of Suffering does more damage but Spectral Wall is more reliable, so it has a permanent home on my utility bar.
Armor: It would be nice to see this skill get some buffs. Right now it only has two reasons for existing: (1) it is a combination of Spectral Wall and Spectral Walk, so you can save a utility slot if you’re not interested in swiftness (2) we get it automatically with Last Gasp. I think it does have a niche, but that niche is perhaps too narrow to make it useful.

Signets
Spite: Eh. All professions have a signet that’s somewhat worthless. Would be decent in a power/signet build, I think the problem is that it’s too straightforward, or single-minded, to make it attractive to slot. A lowered CD would help.
Locust: Awesome after the buff. Awesome out of combat for movespeed, awesome in combat for free heals. No further change needed.
Plague: Best team-oriented condition cleanse in the game, and synergizes nicely with the necro’s theme of condition manipulation. No change needed.
Undeath: I think this signet is fine. The cooldown is fine for what the active does. The passive effect may seem weak, but it is very nice for the builds that would run this signet, as they usually sacrifice Life Force generation for things like condition damage, and this helps fill the gap. No change needed.

Corruptions
A condition on yourself means more healing through CC, more to transfer to enemies via various means, or more to convert with Well of Power. I read that someone didn’t like this aspect of the corruptions but I think that the ability to inflict conditions on ourselves should be counted as part of the benefit of the utility, not viewed as a drawback.
Corrupt Boon: Awesome, shuts down bunkers in no time flat.
Epidemic: Awesome.
Blood is Power: 30s bleed + great boost to damage. Yes please.
Corrosive Poison Cloud: Eh. Personally I have never used this skill. It seems okay as an on-demand weaken and poison, I have just always wanted other skills more.

Minions
Bone Fiend: The immobilize seems unreliable. If it was better I think this minion would be fine.
Bone Minions: Blast finisher and good damage. No change needed.
Shadow Fiend: Eh. The reason you would take this minion is the on-demand blind, but I’m not sure how useful that is. Probably the weakest minion, could use a buff.
Flesh Wurm: Stun breaker, 10% life force, blast finisher, poison. Awesome.

Elites
Plague: Awesome.
Lich: On-demand, insane spike. No changes needed.
Flesh Golem: Awesome, except for the AI problem that all minions currently suffer from.

Fine as is. Leveling in WvW is a nice alternative to doing it in PvE, even if I have to stick with the zerg to do so.

Also I encounter far fewer 80’s than those who are being leveled up to 80.

Roezz.5460:

The downed state is the advantage a larger force has against a smaller one—which for the love of all things Holy WvW does not need more of. Smaller force can win in a battle and put a far greater number of enemy in downed state, then make one mistake with someone getting dead, then 15 people in the larger force rally, restoring the larger forces advantage despite their incompetence on the field. I’ve done it on 2 v 6 before as well. We put 4 or 5 in a downed state and one of us dies and they all rally. Larger forces do not need force multipliers.

Unfortunately, WvW has PvE and sPvP as priorities. It’s a horrible WvW mechanic. God awful mechanic.

When I am done with GW2 I will remember WvW for culling, lack of balanced participation and the downed state mechanic.

I’ve had the exact opposite thing happen to me. Our group of 5 fighting a group of 7 or 8, most of us downed, got one clutch stomp, we all rallied and cleaned house. Down state can also work to the advantage of smaller groups because it works to the advantage of whoever handles the down state better. Your story alone is not a substantive argument.

Xsorus.2507:

Or you can be a thief , In otherwords, the only reason the Guardian didn’t get the res off…Was because your class, It had nothing to do with skill…It didn’t make the fight more interesting, Your class simply allowed you to counter a crappy mechanic.

If you were another class, Chances are that thief would of gotten ressed and went back to noob spamming Heart Seeker.

I do this on my Necro with warhorn 4 or one of my fears. Mesmers can shatter their clones for daze mid-stomp IIRC, if not then just do it right before the stomp. Guardians can push back or gain stability for stomp. Warriors can knock down or also gain stability…so on and so forth. It’s not just thieves. Like he said, learn what tools your class brings to stomping and ressing and use them.

No one’s bothered to respond to the argument below yet…It’s the reason I think the downed state should/will stay.

ASP.8093:

In pitched battles, Downed state doesn’t just reward “the bigger zerg.” It rewards pushing for position. When an enemy goes down, your enemies are now stuck with a fixed point they have to control for a few seconds. It’s on you to pressure them away from that point. Removing downed state means less emphasis on movement and positioning in big battles, not more.

~

I agree with the idea of “If you’re spiked, you should stay dead,” though. Not a big deal either way, but it does add a bit of extra value to properly executing enemy players.

To get the best use out of it you should pick up a trait that does something when you enter/leave DS (like enfeebling shroud) and use it in quick bursts. I mostly use DS for absorbing damage, a quick 2 and 3, maybe 4 but ususally not, then I am back out again. I rarely stay in it long enough to spam 1, unless I’m in a dungeon.

It’s doing 25%, the buff tooltip is wrong.

Rennoko.5731:

The 25 point trait in curses (target the weak) also doesn’t work on conditions. I bet the developers had a good laugh about that one, being at the end of the “conditions” tree.

Almost as if they’re nudging necros toward hybrid builds…no, couldn’t be true. Much easier to assume that they don’t know what they’re doing. :P

This change really only affects pugs. My guildies and I always communicate about when to use disables, and we keep bosses at 0 defiant stacks until we need to interrupt something. After we interrupt, everyone uses their CC skills to get rid of the stacks. Wash, rinse, repeat. Hopefully Anet will make Defiant block Basilisk Venom too, then things will be consistent across the board.

Hey Kardiamond. My build is:

- Full Knight’s armor
- 20 in Death Magic (Shrouded Removal, Reaper’s Protection)
- 20 in Blood Magic (Bloodthirst, Vampiric Precision)
- 30 in Soul Reaping (Spectral Mastery, Master of Terror, and either Foot in the Grave for roaming or Near to Death for zerging)
- Dagger/Warhorn with sigils of Rage and Blood, Axe/Focus with sigils of Bloodlust and Blood (not final on the Rage and Bloodlust sigils)
- 5/6 Runes of the Vampire until they fix the DS bug with the 6th bonus
- Omnomberry Pie and Superior Sharpening Stones

For utilities, swap between Well of Suffering, Corrupt Boon, Spectral Wall, Spectral Walk, and Spectral Grasp as the situation calls for it. Elite is Flesh Golem because otherwise I never used the elite. Heal is Consume Conditions.

Basically you survive a long time because of the constant siphoning and toughness, and you do damage by stacking Vulnerability on your target, which helps punch through Protection and other boons, plus Knight’s comes with a good amount of pow/pre. I’m still working out the optimal balance of defense and offense. A few days ago I swapped out the jewels for all Berserker’s and that’s working pretty well, I will probably stick with it.

Also, the 20 points in Blood Magic are the only “mandatory” part of this build. I’ve done 30 in Spite and 20 in Curses, I’ve done 10/10/20/20/10, and all have been pretty effective, it just depends on what traits you like. Right now I have Reaper’s Protection because I want to be immune to GS warriors and the initial burst of D/D Eles (when they Updraft, the fear hits them before the dodge kicks in), and I use Foot in the Grave because I want to shroudstomp people :-D

When this build works, it works great. A few days ago I was roaming around solo and started fighting a dolyak. A ranger showed up midway through, so I killed him, then went back to the dolyak. ANOTHER ranger AND a D/D ele showed up. I finished off the yak and managed to kill them both with about 80 health remaining – all those little 38’s and 57’s plus the sigils plus the runes added up over time to keep me alive, the whole sequence was maybe 6-7 minutes long. And I have a recording of it, I’m at work now but can post the video when I get home if you wish. They were sort of bad players but so am I; I get flustered in combat sometimes and press the wrong skill buttons :-) I guess my point is that the build doesn’t require that much skill to use because of the many inherent defenses.

When the build doesn’t work, it’s because I didn’t play well against a burst Thief (using DS at the wrong times so I don’t absorb damage, etc), or get unloaded on by multiple people. It would also be pretty bad against pure condition builds since there’s only 1 source of removal besides CC, but I’ve only found like 1 or 2 of those in the past few months and I wasn’t alone. Defensive Guardians and D/D eles are looooong fights, but very winnable.

Hey cesmode, I also play a vampire build, but I mostly do WvW so my build is a bit different from yours. Knight’s is the best choice for armor. Since necro’s already have the highest base health in the game we can afford to go full toughness. I ran full exotic Knight’s for about a month and it worked wonders anywhere I went (didn’t try sPvP). Lately I swapped out the jewels for Berserker’s. So don’t bother with the TA armor, like sternenstaub said the healing doesn’t help a vampire build that much.

I agree that life siphon builds are good. I also agree that using a staff on a siphon build isn’t great. In your case it works out since it seems like you play mostly dungeons and PvE.

All the Eles I fight in WvW either take 5 minutes to kill or run away. Having Corrupt Boon or those sigils that strip boons on crit helps, but I’d say you need either extreme burst or an attrition-focused build to beat them. I went the attrition route with my necro.

Eh, I hope Locust isn’t simply buffed to 25%. I already have perma-swiftness on my build and I don’t like the idea of every class having almost the same signet. They could do more with it than a simple speed change IMO.

Hey ET of the clan [Mend], I’m the HoD asura following your group around right now as you cap some towers. Naked dance parties are always fun, thanks for letting me tag along. You’re a cool bunch of people. <3

Can’t you only get QPs from paid tournaments?

The damage on the tooltip is reduced by your target’s toughness. Dunno about the reduced healing.

Hey tehsmooth, you are my kinda necro I looked over your build and it is much better than my first attempt at a siphon necro! I have a few fixes for it, some of them are things Kardiamond already said, but I will confirm them.

-There is still the bug with the 6th Rune of Vampirism where it triggers early, so leave it off for now.

-I second putting the dagger with the warhorn, unless you prefer it the other way. Do yo thang :-)

-If you want to keep the Sigils of Blood and Vampiric Precision (which I recommend you do), you should use Knight’s gear instead of Cleric’s. The +healing does not effect your siphoning very much at all (there’s another thread in this forum where we think it might have some every so slight effect), it’s too small to be worth putting stats toward. The toughness/power/precision from Knight’s will give you plenty of damage, defense, and crit so you can constantly proc those siphons.

-Damage on fear is a waste since it scales with condition damage. You’d be better off with Enfeebling Blood or maybe putting those points down into Soul Reaping so you can take Last Gasp and get Spectral Armor for free at 50% hp. That way you’d have room for another utility on your bar.

Here is my tweaked version of your build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIbdG2IjW8e2m1G9mCYSB3eD9IXcdOqwxUFgH;TsAA2Coocy4kwJnTSnWYMwYDxcEA
Have fun!

Your first response intrigues me. You said that there’s nothing you can get that replaces your mesmer traits. Couldn’t that be viewed as a bad thing? Maybe this is why many other classes say that they are pigeonholed into certain builds, because there’s no replacement for the traits they need and are forced to take in order to do certain builds effectively! Necros, on the other hand, can make up for some traits with food or runes and thus have points for other things. How is that a bad thing for necros? It seems like we have the greatest flexibility within our builds compared to any other class.

This conversation has reinforced my belief that necro builds are designed to encompass a variety of things, instead of being just a shatter mesmer or just a killshot Warrior.

I understand your position now, though. In order to gain this flexibility we give up having many of the more compelling traits in the game. Personally this works very well for me, the necro is my favorite class even with its problems. If the design puts you off then that’s the way things are I guess.

Ooo, also, something just occurred to me concerning your last paragraph. I’ve noticed that too, but I love it about the necro. I can do what I want to do (in my case, power and siphoning) with less than 70 points. You’re right that deciding where to put those remaining points is so, so difficult. Would less recharge on Spectral skills help me more than EB on entering DS? It’s hard to tell sometimes.

I feel like the other classes have less leeway in this regard than necros do. They’ve got to use all 70 or at least 60 to get the traits they need for a particular build.

Alanis – and players without Hemophilia will play different, too, usually by not using Scepter as one of their main hand weapons, or by doing a more hybrid build. In my opinion there’s no difference.

I have hard decisions to make on necro, too. It sucks that I can’t get good boon duration and stability on DS and good condition duration just from traits all at the same time. It sucks that I can’t have minions drawing conditions and ripping boons off of enemies and doing 30% more damage at the same time. It sucks that I can’t have stability on DS and 20% bonus damage and use the siphoning traits I want (2 majors). All classes have meaningful decisions in their trait lines – that’s what makes GW2 so special compared to a game like WoW, where there were 3 builds per class. Last I played anyway, which was mostly BC and some Wrath.

Thanks for the info, Drarnor. It still changes the playstyle of the class by rewarding you for dodging in some situations where you wouldn’t before – either to stack bleed when your switch to scepter is cooling down and you’ve already used Mark of Blood, or to keep your regen up when you’ve already used Mark of Blood.

Kheldar.6278:

lettucemode.3789:

Taking a cue from the other traits mentioned in this thread – clone on dodge doesn’t mean you’ll dodge more often, you still dodge when the situation calls for it.

I agree with most of what you said except for the above. If you’re a mesmer and you take this trait, it changes the situation in which a dodge is called for. Instead of just dodging to evade attacks, you now also dodge to increase dps and/or spike damage someone. It changes the way you play your class.

Yea, I edited that out last minute, but thanks for bringing it up again. I’ll use your post to pose another question to the others – how does the equivalent trait for necromancers, Mark of Evasion, not also prompt the necro to use dodge more offensively, just like mesmer?

“Not much that changes how the profession is played” is such a vague phrase that I’m not sure how to respond to it. Are you saying that a necro isn’t going to try to stack bleeds if he takes Hemophilia? That a necro won’t be less afraid to close with enemies when he has Enfeebling Blood, or Foot in the Grave? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

Shatter on self pushes a mesmer toward a shattering build the same way taking Hemophilia pushes a necro toward a bleed build – what’s the difference?

There were people in this thread saying that traits are not good on a necro and I responded to that. It’s funny how you guys corrected me, saying that you can’t get certain combinations of the things on my list (as if I didn’t know) or start polarizing the debate toward individual traits and effects. I’m not going to get into a non-meaningful debate, which is 95% of the debates on this forum. The point is that traits are useful on all classes, including necro.

I concede the point about the 6k damage on fear unless I can find the thread where someone did the math on it.

Right. So according to you guys, the following things are not game changing:

A free stomp every 10s.
Free AoE weaken for when someone closes with you.
Removing a condition every 5s for free.
Removing 5+ conditions every 10s with a minion build.
100% fury uptime.
20% bonus damage half the time.
Guaranteed-to-land marks.
Long fears doing over 6k damage (IIRC from another thread).
Permanent weakness on a single target.
Automatic 2s AoE fear on being disabled (before increasing duration and damage).
Free spectral armor.

I’m not sure if we’re playing the same class.

XiL.4318:

Generate Life Force, Stack Vulnerability, Blood is Power, touch their butt, epidemic if you want to touch their friend’s butts too. If they try to touch your but, use Plague and quickly ctrl+mouseclick plague 2 so it auto-attacks. (this makes you clench like those female body builders, no one can touch this butt)

And if for somehow your butt gets touched anyway, Spectral Walk and run away while building more life force if people chase and attack… etc.. so forth, wink wink nudge nudge.

Basically, I touch butts without stability. And if you really need to get that stupid vengeance kitten greatsword Rambo down, Plague Stomp.

I like this post.

By the way, all the plague skills act like a switch. Your plague pulses once per second, and will use whatever ability you clicked last on each pulse until you press a new one. No need to autocast.

Spectral Walk is on a 60s CD and is two stun breaks, one for each use of the ability. There’s also Spectral Armor (90s) and Plague Signet (60s), and the signet would help you support your friends even more. Teleporting to the worm minion (its secondary skill) is also a stun break. Since you are already in Death Magic you can pick up Reaper’s Protection and punish people for disabling you with a long disable of your own. You can go into Death Shroud at any time, even if disabled, so if you have good life force generation (staff + axe/focus is decent) you can eat any damage that comes your way after the disable.

If you put 15 points into Soul Reaping, you will automatically gain Spectral Armor for free, including the stun break. I’m pretty sure that’s the only traited one we get.

It’s not a gimmick, it’s a nice side bonus to our class mechanic. And I don’t get screwed in situations where nothing is dying around me. If you do, I suggest finding a place for Spectral Walk or Armor on your utility bar.

pmargeti.7680:

It’s the wvwvw bonuses being active now.

I noticed it happening long before the WvW bonuses were fixed.

I’ve noticed this too and was thinking about making a post about it, it’s been happening for a while. Some days my normal attacks will siphon for 38, sometimes for 40. I haven’t been able to pin down a specific cause, it could be from allied power buffs (I know warriors have one) or it could depend on your weapons or stats. I haven’t taken the time to test it out, though, so I’m as in the dark as you are.

Does it happen with only that golem or with all the golems? The most likely solution is that the server is in a weird state concerning that golem – it shows you the golem in one place but it’s actually in another place. Dark Path works everywhere for me, so test out the other golems and enemy players.

Knote, if they removed LF gain on death I would be very disappointed. Killing critters to gain life force when running around in WvWvW is the reason I never enter any fight without a full bar if I can help it. They give like 5% too.

After the fractals came out I found myself wishing I had rolled Charr just for the animations. I don’t use my Asura’s racial abilities, even though Pain Inverter is quite good – it confuses enemies around you too.

I run full Knight’s gear – weapons, armor, jewels, everything. I was thinking of soldier’s/invader’s but I like siphoning so much I decided I need the crit chance. Even with no extra health the insane amount of toughness makes me extremely durable – I have time to kill the burst thieves that don’t simply run away, for example.

In the end your gear depends on what build you want to do and what traits/skills are the most fun for you to play. Just don’t go full Berserker’s. At least, not for your first set.

Kill, you’re wrong on this one. Necrotic grasp velocity was buffed to be equal to the other two slow-projectile-speed weapons in the game, guardian and mesmer scepter, that’s why Fynd mentioned them. Anet changed both Necrotic Grasp and Spectral Grasp by buffing their speed. I’ve played with staff both before and after the November patch and noticed the speed change, just like Fynd. Nothing else to say, those are the facts. If you still think the speed is bad that is another issue altogether.

It does.

15char

He mentioned the scepters because they are the slowest projectile weapons in the game. In the October update Necrotic Grasp was buffed to be on par with them, so it’s consistent now.